London. You suck and are gray.

Today fue el penultimate day of my becoming a full-fledged legal immigrant in Spain, at least for the next ten months. I have my meeting tomorrow morning to get my NIE papers and none too soon because on Friday I'm off to Budapest for the weekend. I know very little about Budapest - pronounced "Budapesht," one thing I do know - but Lauren taught there for a couple years prior to this and that was all I needed to hear to invite myself to the homecoming party.

I'm actually exhausted and slightly concerned about how this is all going to work out. Usually I neeed to do some prepping on the weekends because they ain't no spare time Monday through Thursday. Today I started at the Colegio at 9, taught until 230, rushed home for a twenty minute badly needed coffee, back to school at 3, on the Metro at 305 for an hour-long private lesson, back on the Metro to get to my next 1.5 hour long private, back on the Metro for my next 1.5 hour-long private, and then couldn't bear to get back on the subway so made the 45 minute walk home in a record 35 to walk into my flat at 940. Bienvenida.

This is typical and if I weren't enjoying teaching I don't know how I'd survive, but damn it, I just love my bratty little students. Today I had a lesson with the 4th graders for the first time and ohmygodIlovethem!!! Mostly I just think it's very self-actualizing when nine year olds love you. Like hello, I'll take your gratuitous kiddie affection and wallow in it. I realized I may never be able to teach in the States because when they had to leave the classroom one girl gave me a hug and I kissed her on the top of the head because I mean come on she was just so damn cute! And then about seven or eight more students lined up for me to kiss them. It was adorable in a sort of never-ever-allowed-in-a-U.S.-classroom sort of way. They also called me muy guapa and said I had a beautiful name and one told me his father owns a pastelería - a cakeshop - and I'm thinking about having this crew of babies follow me around everywhere to say other such beautiful things.

Also on the drama docket was Oooh, Ana met a boy! I was giving an English lesson to the music teacher, Amaya, when Ana came into the room and asked if she could use the computer to check Facebook. Seems she had sent a message to some guy (although the "met a boy" choice of words was her initial phrasing), and she had to check if he'd written back, but didn't want to do it in the main room with the other teachers. She was very nervous. It took her a good five minutes to get her email address correctly typed in. Amaya and I had continued to talk while waiting for her to show us pictures and when we looked over several minutes later she was pecking wildly at the keyboard, desperate for entrance to the website. The night before had been even worse, as she had accidentally sent the message before it was finished and had to send a follow-up one explaining herself ("Hi, it's me again!").

Me enjoying London.

Ana's awesomely awesome and so is Amaya. They both warned me very severely to watch out for Latin American men - "You need a nice Spanish boy!" - and Ana also asked me to come with her to England this spring. The 3rd or 4th of ESO students go there for a week and the other English Assistant, who is a father of one of the students at the school and is Spanish, had said he wanted to go. "But Megan if he goes, I am not going. I cannot do it." Ana the poor girl has some problems with him because he's very imposing with his schedule and with what he thinks the students need, but she doesn't want to create tension by addressing it. Uhh.. Anyway, she has to talk to Madre Martina about whether I can go, but I think it would be fun. Imagine that, me, England, fun who knew.